Jesus Repudiates Mariolatry

One of the purposes of the first epistle of John is to combat the heresy of gnosticism, a common heresy at that time. Paul often fought against the false teaching of the Judaizers. Almost every book of the New Testament warns us to beware of false teachers, false prophets, and false doctrine; and for good reason--it was prevalent right there and then, in that age. If it was prevalent then, what gurantee do we have that these so-called church fathers were "pure and orthodox" in their doctrine? Does it matter if one can find evidence if they strayed into strange doctrines concerning Mariolotry? There were many strange doctrines at that time. Paul said to the Ephesian elders, that right after his departing grievous wolves would enter the flock not sparing the sheep. And so they did.

Our standard of truth is not history. It is not "thus saith the church fathers." It is thus saith the Lord!" What does the Bible have to say on any one topic, including Mariolotry, and all of its various related doctrines. That is our only standard, our only rule of faith and doctrine. If we cannot depend on the inspired Word of God for our truth, then what can we depend upon?

Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

In the OT God spoke through the prophets in various ways--dreams, visions, audibly, etc.
In the NT God has spoken to us through His Son, who came to us in the form of a man, died, was buried and rose again the third day (1Cor.15:3,4). Everything that we need to know about him is recorded in the inspired word of God. He has left us a record in the NT.

John said about Christ:
John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

He wrote that you might believe that Christ is the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life through his name.
John was an eyewitness to the miracles and the words of Christ. He recorded what he saw and heard. He left us a testimony in the Bible that we might believe.
It is the testimony of John and the rest of the Apostles, not the "church fathers" that we depend upon for truth.

 

HP: Would to God that that were true. Many Church fathers still rule from the grave, case in point, Augustine the father of the doctrine of original sin, Calvin with his five points, and Luther with his bondage of the will.

 

My statement was:
"It is the testimony of John and the rest of the Apostles, not the "church fathers" that we depend upon for truth."

The statement still stands true. I don't believe in the heresies of the men that you quoted, nor do I base my beliefs on theirs. What do they have to do with what I believe? Nothing. My standard remains the Word of God.

 

DHK: My statement was:
"It is the testimony of John and the rest of the Apostles, not the "church fathers" that we depend upon for truth."

The statement still stands true. I don't believe in the heresies of the men that you quoted, nor do I base my beliefs on theirs. What do they have to do with what I believe? Nothing. My standard remains the Word of God.

HP: I am in agreement with your remarks. :thumbs:

I was not speaking of you directly but was making a general statement. It is amazing to me the impact some men have that have been deceased for even hundreds of years.

 

Matt,

I said...

And you said...

If they did miss this truth, I have no idea how they did. I've never spoken with, of even met, Arius, Nestorius, or Eutyches. Their could be any number or reasons. The fact that there are people you dont believe truth does not in any way invalidate the truth, or the scriptures that contain that truth.

Me...

You...

Thank you.

Very quickly. Very early

Not needed. In Gods scriptures themselves we see evidence that the epistles were being circulated, and were considered the scriptures of God. We also have evidence that spurious documents were circulating that should be rejected.

The point in time when they were "officially" bound up together and called ((("The Bible"))) is completly irelavent. It means nothing.

(btw...when is the Catholic Church...and other groups, from what I understand...ever going to get around to throwing out those counterfiet scriptures they still include in their "Bibles"?)

God bless,

Mike

 

The question asked above is of the form "if anyone has a different opinion on any given doctrine then the THING everyone is using to determine doctrine must be INSUFFICIENT" --

And as was proven in the other thread on the doctrine upon which the entire church stands -- we see differences of opinion regarding doctrine REGARDLESS if the appeal is to tradition, ECF's or Sola-Scriptura.

Using the "differences exist so the source must be insufficient" rule would wipe them ALL out as reliable sources conveying truth.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Amazing it is indeed! And to think how fast heresy spreads. Even today--they say that a new cult is born every day.

 

I believe that there is no Scriptural basis for believing that Mary and the other saints in heaven can hear prayers offered to them. Even if [the saints] could hear some prayers, how could Mary hear all of the hundreds of thousands of prayers that undoubtedly are addressed to her every minute of the day? As a creature she, by definition, is limited; she cannot be omniscient and omnipresent!

 

Here we have what I would call the village atheist's objection - you know, the fellow who can't handle Christ's walking on water or Moses' dividing the Red Sea. God can and does elevate human nature to do what unaided it could not do: To him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever (Eph. 3:20).

God empowers Mary and the saints and angels to hear and intercede for us. It is properly his power, not theirs. By asking them to intercede for us, we glorify his love and power. The reason we go to them is for his sake alone, to strengthen the bonds of family among ourselves and with him, who has called us all from darkness into his marvelous light. It is not right for anyone, by doubt and unbelief, to earn the rebuke Christ laid upon the Sadducees: You are misled, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God (Matt. 22:29).

 

I believe that Luke 1:28,42 indeed justifies special veneration of Mary.
'Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.' [Jesus] replied, 'Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.'

Here it will help to look at the Greek particle menoun in Luke 11:28, which several translations render as "rather." Some italicizes this "rather," thus implying that Luke is using menoun as a particle of contradiction to mean, No, Mary isn't blessed; rather, blessed are they, etc. And what is worse, because uncritical and unscholarly, Some alleges that this interpretation is "obvious." It is far from obvious; it is extremely tenuous and, I believe, quite false.

Margaret E. Thrall, a Protestant scholar, cannot be accused of bias toward the Catholic/Orthodox position. In her study Greek Particles in the New Testament, suggests the following interpretation of menoun in Luke 11:27-28: "What you have said is true as far as it goes. But the blessedness of Mary does not consist simply in the fact of her relationship towards myself, but (menoun) in the fact that she shares in the blessedness of those who hear the word of God and keep it, and it is in this that true blessedness lies." (Margaret E. Thrall, Greek Particles in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962),35.) I think this is probably the best interpretation of this text, giving the true sense of "rather."

 

HP: Not according to Scripture. 1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

 

We use the Scripture for our authority. Please show from the Bible that this is a Scriptural practice. You must be familiar with the Ten Commandments:

Exodus 20:3-5 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

The summary of these verses is quite simply. Only God is to be worshiped: Him and Him alone. The worship of any other person or thing is idolatry. Thus the worship of Mary or other saints is idolatry.

Only God can answer prayer. He alone has that power. He alone can intercede on our behalf. There is no other person that can do that work.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
--There is only one mediator, only one intercessor, and that is Jesus Christ Himself. It is blasphemy to speak of Mary or any other saint as an intercessor or as one having the ability to do what Christ alone can do.

No, that is contradictory. If you ask someone else to intercede, and say that that person has the power to do so on your behalf, then you are obviously glorifying that person, and thus taking the glory away from Christ who alone is worthy of such glory.

This is pure nonsense and contradictory, illogical statements. Are you suggesting that Christ is so weak that he cannot directly answer our prayers but needs the help of others? How ridiculous! If you say it "is for his sake alone," then why don't you go to him directly, "for his sake alone?" Why is the worship given to another rather than to Christ? This is pure idolatry, one of the greatest sins that one can commit. It is also what one could call necromancy--praying to the dead. For the resurrection has not yet taken place. And just as my grandfather is dead and buried, so is Mary, the apostles and all the saints. They are all dead and buried. Praying to the dead is sin. People of the OT were stoned to death for such sins.

You are absolutely right. It is not right for anyone.
You are misled because you do not know the Scriptures neither the power of God.

 

DHK says:

You are 100% right.

You've nailed it again.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here by interceding on our behalf. God answers prayer directly; He doesn't intercede.

DHK, do you not believe in intercessory prayer? Surely you have asked a loved one to pray for you and I doubt that you considered yourself glorifying your loved one by asking him or her to pray for you. In our church we pray for others every time we meet. This doesn't take the glory away from Christ and put it on us.

Mary can't answer prayers. The saints can't answer prayers. Only God can answer prayers. The point you seem to be missing is that prayer is not worship. A prayer is a petition; worship is adoration. In the civil law the last element in a pleading is called the "prayer for relief." So it is with prayers to the saints. I don't know of any church that condones worship of anyone but God.

Here you have raised a matter where people of good minds and good will differ. If what you believe here is true, then indeed prayers to the saints are in vain. We know the resurrection of the body will not occur until our Lord returns, and then we will have glorified bodies. 1 Corinthians 15:35-54. But what about the spirit? Scripture teaches that the spirits of the dead in Christ go directly to Heaven. Revelation 6:9; Hebrews 12:1; Revelation 8:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; Ecclesiastes 12:7. The spirit is separated from the body until our Lord's return, at which time they will be reunited. So the body is dead and decaying but the spirit is alive and in Heaven. The spirit is more alive than we can imagine, and without the constraints of time and space, it is not at all difficult to believe that the saints can hear our prayers. Furthermore, they are uniquely qualified to offer our prayers to God. If they are saints in Heaven they are Godly people, the kind of people God listens to. After all, don't we seek out Godly people here on earth to offer prayers for us?

 

When a believer prays, he prays to the Father, with the help of the Spirit, and the intercession of Christ, as well as in the name of Christ.

Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Romans 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

1 John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

Our advocate, Jesus Christ, is our one and only intercessor. He is our High Priest. He is the only one that can adequately intercede for us. He is the only one that can forgive sins. No man on earth has that power. No priest can forgive sins. No man can come between man and God; only Christ can do that work.

One can pray for another, but we pray to God alone. There is no one that can intercede for us. In other words if I pray for you, in reality I am not interceding for you but it is Christ doing that work, as I pray for you. My prayers are always God-directed, never man-directed. I would never pray to a person, but only for a person. You suggest that one ought to pray to a person (Mary) which is blasphemous, and taking away the glory that is due only to God. All prayer must be God-directed; never man-directed, nor any other thing or person-directed. If it is then it is idolatry, which is exactly which you are describing.

That is true. So why commit the sin of idolatry and necromancy at the same time, and pray to dead people thinking that they can help you? Why not pray to God alone? He is the only one that can answer your prayers. Christ alone can intercede on your behalf. To pray to Mary and the saints is an exercise in futility and it is sin.

All prayer is directed to God; all prayer therefore is worship. Show me in the Bible where prayer is not worship. The trouble with the RCC and the Anglicans is that they take prayer and divide it into two different classes. They do the same with worship. In this way they think that they can get away with praying and worshiping Mary and the saints without violating the Ten Commandments. Just because you deliberately change definitions of words doesn't mean that you are not violating the same command of not worshiping any other God but God alone. Worshiping Mary is a violation of the Ten Commandments. It is idolatry. Prayer, all prayer, is worship.

In praying for relief my prayers are directed to God. All prayer is directed to God. And as long as prayer is God-directed it is worship. If it is prayer and not God-directed you either have a different definition of prayer, or you are committing idolatry.

And so they are. You will find plenty of Scripture on that teaching in the Bible, especially in the Book of Deuteronomy.

So then? Are you dealing with the spirit world? the occult? the paranormal? One of the governor-generals in Canada prays to her dead grand-parents every night. Do you? Why not? The Japanese put out food and valuables for their dead ancestors in hopes that the dead spirits will protect them. Do you believe in the same? It sounds like it. The only one that can protect you is Christ. The only one that you can pray to is Christ, for he is the only one that will hear your prayers, and that only if you have a clean heart.

Psalms 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

 

HP: What does it mean to regard iniquity in ones heart?

 

The WEB translates the verse this way:

Psalms 66:18 If I cherished sin in my heart, The Lord wouldn't have listened.

Jamieson, Faucett and Brown indicate that the phrase literally means: "see iniquity with pleasure."

Most believe the verse simply means that if one has unconfessed sin in their heart God will not hear their prayers.

 

Shad,

No, He does not. The scriptures make clear that there is one intercessor between God and man, Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught us to pray by way of a "sample" prayer. In it He started it by saying that we should pray "Our Father, who is in heaven..."

Not "Oh Mary, who is in heaven..."

No, you dont. The evil one wants you to think of it that way, however. By praying that way people replace God with Mary as they pray. That is idolatry.

The family that we are to "streghthen bonds" with is our christian brothers and sisters here on earth. Not those in heaven. Those in heaven will be there waiting for us in due time. The only person in heaven we are to attempt to contact is God.

And that is God, not the sinner saved by God Mary.

The worst offenders regarding Mary are the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. They do not in any way just innocently "ask Mary to intercede" for them. I've heard Catholics and Catholic apologists say here and on other boards "Why, all we do is ask Mary to pray for us, just like you might as a friend to pray for you!"

Nonsense. In both groups we find blatant goddess worship directed towards Mary. They entrust the care of the whole world into her hands, they ask her to protect infants and children, save souls, give supposed visitations and apperitions, perform miracles, etc etc etc.

Just encouraging their people world wide to pray to Mary causes the Catholic Church admit that they consider Mary to be omnipresent. A characteristic that only God posseses.

God have mercy,

Mike

 

Nice ducking of the question! The answer is "because Scripture alone is insufficient in such matters."

Please specifically cite your sources

On what basis do you assert that they are counterfeit? I don't recall Jesus or Paul saying anything along those lines about the LXX.

 

Davy appears to totally reject the false doctrine of praying to the dead.

Shad appears to differ on that point -

This would have been a great argument Shad - IF it were even remotely true that JUST as God placed the incident of Christ walking on water and Moses dividing the Red Sea - SO ALSO God placed in scripture accounts of the NT saints praying to Mary after she died!

Or NT saints or OT saints PRAYING to ANYONE who was dead! In 1Thess 4 the dead saints are called "the DEAD in Christ" -- some reject that -- I prefer to accept it.

Too bad you have no Bible text supporting that story.

In Isaiah 8 we are told not to "consult the DEAD on behalf of the LIVING.

But today - this practice of communicating with the dead is fully accepted in some Christian circles.

Here Shad deals specifically with the issue of communion with the Dead

Sadly - scripture flatly condemns that activity. The sad part is that the vast majority of Christians ignore scripture on that point.

Having failed to provide even one single scripture in favor of your idea of praying to the dead - you now argue that we should be listening to scripture? Well feel free to start doing that at any time in this subject - because it will do you a world of good! In a case like this - you really need to make your case "sola-scriptura" -- use the Bible as your proof.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Grace and Peace,

I would like to discuss your Trinitarian Doctrine... You appear to view the Father as the only God and Jesus Christ as an elevated man who acts as our intercessor.

Do you not know that it is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, who created us and who will judge us?